


pen, paper, and canvas

by feverchild



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Csevet and Csethiro have Got This, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Portraits, Research, on all sides, terrifying efficiency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 12:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverchild/pseuds/feverchild
Summary: Maia has reservations about his official portrait.This proves a solvable problem.





	pen, paper, and canvas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Path](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/gifts).



> This was a blast to write -- I hope you enjoy, Path!

   Against the high ceilings and lavish decoration of the rest of the Unthelineise court, the Imperial Hall of Portraits was oddly anticlimactic, for all that its long, low expanse housed the images of the rulers of the Ethuverazh since Edrethelima. It seemed more like a tunnel, or a little-used corridor, and the walls, paneled in a subdued chestnut wood, were empty of any ornament save for regularly-spaced lamps that had been hastily lit when Maia had sent word of his intention to visit, and, staring out from frames very near life-size, a parade of emperors that stretched until the far wall was all but invisible.

    _Two thousand years._ While Maia had waited for two guards in archaic floor-length uniforms to open the doors that were only permitted a seated emperor -- and of course his norhecherei -- the thought of walking past so many elven-white faces had made him crush nerves at the bottom of his stomach. The thought that his portrait would hang cheek by jowl with his father’s, obviously, hopelessly out of place, for as long as the Drazhada ruled was an even less pleasant one, and so the long walk past former emperors he would have to make before he saw Varinechibel again had taken on the character of a temporary, though much appreciated, reprieve. 

   Once inside, Maia paused by the first portrait, and Beshelar and Cala stopped also, though at a respectable distance behind him. Despite the narrowness of the hall, there was plenty of room for both of them; clearly Edrethelema had designed this room with an emperor’s permanent companions in mind.

   Maia stared at Edrevenivar’s painted form for a long time, feeling some obscure responsibility to understand the man who, by his actions so very long ago, was the reason for Maia’s own reign. It did not come easily; he knew little of the conqueror, beyond the stories than any child heard, and Arbelan’s occasional comment, though those tended more towards political policy than any fact of personality. Even so, the enormous portrait -- stretching almost floor to ceiling, and dwarfing its nearest neighbor -- executed in style that reminded Maia of an ancient icon to Cstheio he had once seen, seemed to suit the man. Despite his flat, stiff posture, and the simplicity of his garments, there was something in those painted eyes that defied any viewer to question his right to stand where he did, with a map of the Ethuveraz stretching under his feet. 

   What would the next emperor see in Maia’s own portrait, he wondered with a bitter twist of amusement. Discomfort? Inadequacy? Or-- That train of thought ground to a halt, arrested by the realization that the scornful successor he had half-imagined would be his son. And the image shifted: a young man weighed down by robes and gems, staring up at a painted pillar of white whose eyes, though the same Drazhadeisa grey, fixed on the opposite wall in haughty dismissal. There would be absolutely no difference between Varenechibel and Edrehasivar, at least once the painters had their say. 

   It sickened him. 

   Maia jerked back, and strode up the corridor as quickly as he could without seeming to flee. He wanted, very much, to be done with this place. He wanted to be sitting at his own table, smiling at Csethiro’s next, outrageous insinuation, and listening to the day’s business, being led gracefully from confusion into understanding by Csevet’s clear and -- he admitted this with a slight blush -- beautiful voice. 

   Edrivenivar II’s smaller, humbler portrait passed in a blur. 

   It took a while to for the awful, vertiginous feeling of seeing himself as he wished never to appear to fade, and longer to slow down enough to take in the other paintings, which were of the older, Belthenine emperors.

   The promise came without invocation, or indeed much conscious thought, _I will not be cold with thee, ever, nor distant and harsh. I--...I promise this, whoever shalt become._ Then, to no god in particular, _Hear and witness._

   Feeling marginally better, he turned back to watching the portraits go by. These were far older even than Edrethelema’s, and frequently no more than the vaguest suggestion of a face swimming on old canvas inside a careful frame. Though it was hard to make out any detail, Maia thought a few might have been clutching sunblades, and wished Csethiro were there to see. He would have to describe them to her later. 

   About halfway down the Hall, he stopped again. On the wall where the next portrait should have hung, there was draped a heavy swath of fabric, black and velvety-looking where the dust had not settled. From the gilded wood visible at two corners, a portrait did hang underneath, but as there was no nameplate to be seen, Maia found no clues to why this the face of this particular emperor should be concealed. Was it too fragile to stand the light? But then half the portraits he had passed should have received the same protection. 

   He heard a dry cough from behind him, and turned around to see Cala with his lips pursed, looking speculatively at the veiled painting. Maia nodded for him to speak, and he did, even his quiet voice carrying in the long, silent hallway,

   “We believe this to be the emperor Beltanithar III,” A slight pause, “Or rather what was once a portrait of him.”

   The question -- what was once? -- stopped on the tip of his tongue as Cala continued,

   “There is a...working attributed to Orava -- which, we do not wish to misled you, is to say that every gossip in the Athmaz’are a theory they insist on -- but it is said that every image made of the emperor now shows the Usurper instead. And whatever it was he laid, the tale is it cannot be broken.”

   His voice had taken on a kind of storyteller’s lilt, and Maia had little difficulty imagining Cala as he might have been a year ago, telling the same story to a circle of saucer-eyed apprentices in blue maza robes.

Maia kept his back to the portrait. He did not particularly relish the thought of standing under the painted eyes of another, would-be usurper, though of course neither Tethimar nor Chavar nor Sheveän would ever have portraits -- even graves had been a matter of dispute -- and so he left the cover where it was.

   “Is that possible?” he asked Cala instead. 

   It was the kind of simple, childish question he would not have allowed himself before, but here, with no-one but Beshelar and Cala to hear, it did not matter so much as it once had. He was as secure in the circle of their regard as he was safe under their protection, and the knowledge warmed him. And Cala, Maia was gradually learning, relished any opportunity to discuss his field, constrained as he was by the hours his position demanded and the dwindled ranks of the dachenmazei; He was smiling very faintly as he replied,

   “No, not as we understand it. But that has always been the prerogative of mazei.” His smile broadened, and in a brief moment of unselfconscious bravery, Maia matched it with his own. Then, with a last glance at Beltanithar’s portrait -- for Maia had decided, out of an obscure sense of kinship, to think of it that way -- he made his way at last towards the far end, towards Varenechibel his father.

   Glossy and new, Varenechibel’s portrait arrived in due course, though the time it took for him to cross the distance seemed to Maia to take too long, as though his mind was stretching out every instant it could so as to prolong the moment when he would have to look his father in the eye. If there were other portraits between then, he could remember nothing about them.

   It was not very big -- certainly nothing compared to Edrevenivar’s -- and the artist, though competent enough, had clearly cared more for pomp than verisimilitude. Jewels, the same Michen Mura that began at that very moment to itch on Maia’s fingers, were exquisitely rendered by tiny brushstrokes; Varenechibel’s face, a lifeless oval of white. To his surprise, Maia found he could meet Varenechibel’s eyes easily; _this,_ to him, was not his father. Memories of his mother’s funeral had bedeviled him for so long that a reproduction -- every bit as impersonal and white-clad as the several hundred other portraits he had already passed -- could only be a dull echo of that greater terror, its effect nothing against ten years of garbled imaginings.

   Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Beshelar practically vibrating with the desire to speak, which he did the instant Maia turned away from the painting.

   “Serenity!” he said, and they all jumped; Beshelar’s loud, strong voice was not very well suited to the small and echoing confines of the gallery. “Serenity,” he continued more quietly, and both apology and embarrassment were very plain on his face, “We do not presume to suggest a candidate, but in previous years the choice of artist has been the emperor’s purview.”

   Maia looked back at the portrait of his father, and realized he did not have the slightest idea of how to go about finding an artist -- asking Min Vechin, though of course that was impossible for a number of reasons, sprang absurdly to mind -- let alone one he would prefer. Even so, it had been kindly ment, and had had eased his mind a little.

   “We thank you,” he said, deliberate in the gratitude he was not supposed to express, “It will be a choice we make more easily for your advice.”

\---------

   The next morning came, strong sunshine unusual for early spring, without Maia’s having broached the topic of artists with Csevet, and, in truth he did not want to. It would not be as simple a matter as the selection of a royal signet -- to his knowledge, Habrobar had no analogous colleague who delt in portraiture -- and he was reluctant to add what was essentially a personal matter to the abundance of tasks that kept them both up till Isheän, disapproving, whisked him alone to bed. And although common sense told him Csevet would not mind, that he would nod and settle it in a few hours of skillful work, it still felt too frivolous a request to make.

   Anyway, what would he say-- “Find us an artist who will not make us look as our father did?”

   So he said nothing all through the day’s business. There was not much of it, the beyond interminable contract negotiations that dogged progress on the Wisdom bridge -- those, blessedly, were not his responsibility -- and the morning slipped away like sand until, breakfast half-eaten, he heard Csethiro ask,

   “And the gallery yesterday -- How didst find it?”

    _Daunting,_ he thought with an unworthy twist of self-pity, _and oppressive in the bargain,_ then looked quickly over to see if she had caught his the maudlin train of his thoughts. She looked comfortable enough in her dressing gown, an ancient and much-patched construction of ivory silk. Not the most imperial of preferences, but Maia liked her fondness for worn, reliable garments; It set him at ease, to have this reminder that not all the world demanded jewels and embroidery from him.

   Then, aware that he had left the question dangling, he hastily added,

   “It was very old, and...I did not realize there had been _quite_ so many Emperors of the Elflands.”

   Csethiro’s eyes were bright, the look on her face perceptive,

   “Hast already suffered marriage, emperor mine,” she said, and though the raised teacup hid her mouth, the rest of her face hinted that particular smile of hers, half affection and half fond wit. “Wilt conquer portraiture as well.” At the look on his face, less skillfully concealed than he could have wished, Csethiro’s face lost its sardonic cast entirely. When she continued, it was with without a shred of irony.

   “Worriest.”

   As usual, she had seen a great deal. There was no point in hiding, not from her, both because she would ferret him out in an instant and because, he found, he did not really want to. Maia bowed his head over his own teacup, its warmth feeble but comforting.

   “Yes,” he said, and relished the simple honesty of it, the bluntness impossible anywhere but this table, this smallest and most intimate of the public spaces that were now his life. “Varenechibel’s is not an example I wish to follow, even in so -- _trivial,_

_his mind whispered -- cosmetic a matter.” He felt rather than saw Csevet rise in his peripheral vision, poised to deliver clarity, and continued,_

__

   “I am given my choice of painter, I know, but I-- I do not know even who to ask for.”

__

   That was an admission to far, and he hated instantly the note of complaint that had crept into his voice. At least, he reassured himself, it would not leave the room.

__

   Csethiro's reply was instant, resolute:

__

   “Will be well, Maia.” From her, it did not sound an empty reassurance, but a warning to the world at large that, if it would not change, she would _make it._ She continued, “An not, I will bar the gallery doors myself for so long as it takes to court to forget.”

__

   It was far from the most practical offer she had ever made, but nonetheless her solid confidence cheered Maia.

__

   “I hope it will not come to that. Though doubtless it would be sight to see,” he said, amused in spite of his worries.

__

   And it _would_ be. The table lapsed into a comfortable silence while Maia pictured the corridor leading up to the hall he had visited yesterday jammed with courtiers, their voices rising like an aviary, each demanding the reason for the delay, while at the front Csethiro barred those enormous doors, carrying a clearing, a circle that no one dared enter around her.

__

   When after a few minutes he guiltily shifted his attention back to the table, Maia was instantly aware that something about the atmosphere had changed.

__

__

   Csethiro was still sitting across from him, but now very straight and tall, her attention drawn across the room in a taut wire of silent concentration. Her eyes were locked with someone’s, though he could not see who it was.

__

   He thought, suddenly, that _this_ was the true face of the Alcethmeret. Not the grilles, nor the rooms, but a thousand invisible threads of consideration and care, spun about him by its inhabitants. A barrier, a safeguard maintained by daily unasked-for effort, for the singular purpose of keeping him comfortable, protected; safe. There could not possibly be a feeling both dizziness and gratitude, but he, sitting there at the intersection of Csethiro’s loyalty and the invisible, unquestionable accord of the others, he felt it all the same.

__

_Then, an almost inaudible sound behind him. Fabric shifting, or the minute and delicate scratch of pen on paper. It could of been anything._

   It wasn’t. 

   Relief doused him, as sudden as the revelation of a moment before, and he bowed his head so that they would both see it. For what he knew, what he understood of their wordless and unacknowledged language, told him that this barest of communications signaled relief; maybe Csevet had nodded to himself, or maybe he had penciled a note, but the meaning was the same, the solution to a problem, to Maia’s worries, the oft-repeated phrase -- _We will take care of it, Serenity._

And with Csethiro, he would  
With nothing more than eye contact, Maia was almost certain, the two had dissected the problem, chosen path and answer, and without his having to ask, they had taken it out of his hands.

\---------

   It was the hour before noon and Csevet had, as always, a superabundance of tasks. In the paper snowfall spread out over his desk in precise disorder, there were those that demanded his immediate attention and those that, if he were skillful, might be left just a little bit longer.

   Today, the Wisdom bridge was the latter.

   He was fortunate to have his contacts; Couriers, on the whole, had little enough to their names for the necessities, let alone paintings, but even they had sweethearts they wished to remember, births to commemorate the only way they could. And if he asked, they would answer; for if they did not have much materially, then at least they had, in solidarity, an unmatched fortune.

   He wrote letters.

   To one of the older couriers, a generalized appeal; It would be passed along a wider network than even his, for Belis knew -- and when possible cared for -- _everyone._

   To Anno, assistant cook in a minor household, who had long ago granted him three unquestioned days asylum in the warm safety of a disused cupboard when he had wanted nothing other than to sleep and sleeping, forget:

    _Art thou and thy wife well? I wished to ask for the man who painted thy wedding -- what was his name?_

   He bundled it together with a memorandum to the ditchers’ guild -- they had asked for exact descriptions of the places where pilings would be needed -- and sent it off with Zhera, the youngest and most skittish of the Alcethmeret’s pages. Anno would feed him and send him back with pockets full of sweets; It would do him good.

   Almost before the door had shut behind Zhera, another brief slid onto his desk: merchant captains this time, asking after the promised compensations for lost business. It was, properly speaking, a matter for the treasury and the not emperor’s private secretary, but he was aware, reading quiet desperation behind the rote phrasing, that when these captains had pooled their resources to have the letter sent, their livelihoods had hung on the answer. Drawing over fresh sheets of paper, he penned two letters: one in reply and one to the treasury. They were cordial, precise, and required not even half his attention to write.

   Instead, he combed his memory for others -- friends, acquaintances, or simply those he could trust -- who might have the knowledge he sought. He had a half dozen names before he finished both missives, and was sending the requisite notes before the ink had even dried.

    _Brother, when wert a fool for that scribe last year, didst not have her portrait painted? I…_

__

   _I ask for help: the names of those painters whom you trust. If it is within my power to repay…_

__

   Pelezho, dost thy brother still dabble in art?

__

_To the Collegium of the Arts, we thank you most humbly for your time. If a list of recent graduates might be provided to us, we would be most grateful…_

   And so on, the notes slipped between legal sheets and memoranda, invitations and official letters. He did not have time to see to their delivery himself, but the other couriers knew the same unspoken codes of conduct he did; his questions would find their recipients, and, if he were lucky, would bring him what Maia had asked -- or had been about to ask -- him to find.

   While he waited, he worked, for there was always work to be done. Paperwork, he had once told someone while half-drunk and more poetic than usual, was much like the river they were trying to bridge; it could be dammed, diverted, or ladled out with teaspoons, but the water would always persist, and so it was with the demands, requests, invitations and veiled threats that flowed to his desk. All the same, it was almost easy for him; the scores of names came quickly to mind when he needed them, the codes of speech and expression just another dialect among many.

   And then there was Maia. No, he could never do better than what he did now, and certainly far worse.

   The messages trickled back as the afternoon lengthened, returning by the same various and discreet routes as that they had gone out. At one point, Csethiro swept by on her way out. She nodded to him, whether out of politeness or recognition of their shared errand he did not know. He returned the gesture, and then wrenched his gaze back to his papers, lest he turn various immoderate colors. It was wildly, wildly unfair, he thought, that Empress had turned out as beautiful as Emperor.

   The replies read,

    _Fool thyself, Csevet! I would have thee know she is very happy, though not with me. The painter’s name was…_

__

   _We do not know you, but our brother couriers assure us you are to be trusted. In that case, we wish to recommend the painter…_

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   _It is good to hear from thee again, although he does not dabble in anything anymore. Tis alright -- couldst not have known. But of his friends, he spoke most highly of one… ___

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   He read them all, in the brief lulls between one piece of business and the next. Plucking out the names, he turned them over in the back of his mind while he answered the next crop of letters, until he found what he was looking for: one name, repeated between the accounts in telling frequency.

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   Mer Etha, he learned, piecing together the account from a dozen sources, had resigned a commission with one of the great houses a few years ago. What over, Csevet was not sure, but one entirely anonymous note made coy hints and matters of conscience. His clients now were couriers and footmen, pneumatic girls, cooks, and washerwomen; the humble, indispensable folk of the Unthelineise Court. And he treated them well, those short letters said: willing to forgo questions and sometimes, when the money ran out sooner than could have been predicted, payment also.

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   One letter, from a fellow courier that Csevet remembered only as a desperate, wan shadow with whom he had shared his tiny rooms when it became clear there was nowhere else for him to go, brought with it a single, exquisite, sketch. Csevet palmed it, passed it discreetly to his free hand, then made a show with the sealing wax while he inspected the drawing.

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   It was no one he knew, but that did not matter for Etha had somehow put in hints of warmth and humor in every confident curve of ink. No, he did not know the subject, but he was almost certain he would _like_ him.

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   Anno’s letter, returned by a shyly smiling Zhera, settled things:

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    _Csevet dear friend, we are both as happy as could be wished. And thou? Art not still pining after-- Well I will not put it in print, for that would not suit thy courier’s discretion, but I am sure thou knowest who I mean. The painter, you asked me for, and I tell you his name was Etha. A good man, I remember: he took great care with our request, for all that we do not tread such high circles as thee. And he has skill -- Ezhan looks as lovely as I remember her being. Perhaps a little more so, but I must not say that, or she will be wroth._

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_Take care and be well._

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   It took no more than a minute to find the location of Etha’s apartment, for he knew who to ask.

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   He worked furiously after that, barely pausing to dip his pen. With luck, he would be able to spare a few hours to see this painter before sundown. Csevet could, of course, call during the small hours of the morning -- the time would be nothing to him, half-nocturnal as he was by now -- but his request would be irregular enough without the added gloss of late-night conspiracy. And so he read, delegated, and wrote till his eyes blurred.

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   By the time the wood of his desk had reemerged, he had missed dinner by an hour. And although his hands were far too practiced at this kind of work to cramp, even his neat penmanship was beginning to develop a wilder aspect by the end. Csevet stood, wobbly-legged, and left quickly by a side entrance.

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   From his rooms, he took a single folio stuffed with scraps of paper. It was cheap, battered, seemingly of no consequence to anyone, and would see him instantly dismissed if read.

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   Csevet had written each with infinite care over the past year, but the words were not his at all; they were records of times the emperor had asked after the health of his gardeners, or requested a stipend for the Wisdom survivors, or a hundred other thoughtless moments of consideration. Stupid and dangerous to put to paper, but he could not not do so. He refused to have Maia’s kindness, his courage and compassion, written thoughtlessly of existence, and so he would leave, in scraps of conversations, a truer record. It was his small, defiant counterweight to the official histories already passing judgment.

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   And perhaps, if words could somehow be transmuted to paint on canvas, they would outlast them.

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__\---------_ _

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   Csethiro read.

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   Broadsheets, pamphlets, polished artistic journals and folios with crooked amateur print. She sat in a ring of them, immersed in a flow of images and names. The paper in her hands varied from vellum, thick and creamy-smooth, to translucently thin sheets she was forced to read at arm’s length, lest they shrink and wrinkle in the moisture of her breath.

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   Her education had included precious little grounding in the current circles of art, but then she had not been born knowing swordsmanship, etiquette, nor ancient and defunct scripts. All things could be learned, and, once learned, employed.

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   She would find a painter worthy of Maia, and to that end she would read everything she could lay hands on. 

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   Around midday, a courier came by, staggering under the weight of a wrapped package. When Csethiro jumped up to help him set it down, she was startled to see Vedero’s precise, old-fashioned hand decorating the the top of the package. 

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   It read, simply, _Our contribution._

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   Flushed with gratitude, Csethiro cut it open with with one of a little pearl-handled knife that was decorative only insofar that it was as beautiful as it was sharp. Inside, as expected, was more paper. Reproductions of recent works, they looked to be, and each carefully labeled with a name and, even more helpfully, the threads of a reputation. She added them to the pile, and kept reading.

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   In the intervals when one folio blurred into the next and she was forced to pause, she took up charcoal instead, adding to her own collection of sketches, the thumb-sized portraits a habit she had taken up since she had wed Maia.

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   They were, Csethiro admitted, not exactly masterworks: thickets of dense, enthusiastic lines where there should have been the clarity of a single stroke and clumsy shadows, dramatic where a delicate touch was needed to do Maia’s features justice. That was all right. For their value was not in how well they had been made, but that they _had been made_ \-- The proving that, yes, Maia was as worthy a subject of art, of the immortalization of those beautiful and valued, as any.

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   She could, Csethiro thought, do that much.

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   By the time she was done, there was ink worked into the pads of her fingers, sitting blackley under her nails; unless she scrubbed them, she should look a scribe, or perhaps a secretary. _And wouldst be foolish to resent that, for their devotion puts thine to shame,_ she thought.

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   Csethiro had had many heroes in her time, men and women she patterned herself after, hoping, as the supplicant hoped for the answer to their prayer, that if she could not match their virtues she could approach them, and, in that, be somehow bettered; refined.

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   And if those childhood idols had been mazei and guardsmen not servants and stewards, well then the change would do her good.

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   The process was, as she was learning, surprisingly like her accustomed scholarship. First general sources, context and overview: a dozen description of artistic movements, of schools and factions as bitterly diverse as any of the court. Then, once jargon became simply vocabulary, primary sources -- the sketches, miniatures, paintings that occupied her till dark. Then at last, the lightning-bolt of understanding, and a key fitting all locks. 

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   Here, it was a name. 

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   She gathered her things and went.

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   The door she was looking for, located in a quiet corner of the Unthelineise court bore, inconveniently, a sign indicating that its owner was currently involved in business, and that visitors were politely requested to wait. No matter. 

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   Csethiro squared her shoulders and advanced. The presence of another patron was unimportant -- be they six feet tall and built like an ogre, they would be _leaving._

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   It was understandable, therefore, as she strode inside, and clapped the folder of sketches down on the table before the elf in paint-flecked apron, that she missed the room’s other occupant -- a slight, startled figure in a secretary’s high jacket.

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__\------_ _

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   Things moved very quickly.

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   Csevet watched in utter horror as his empress -- _his empress_ \-- met his eyes in shock, turned inexorably back to the table, and seemed to see for the first time the scribbled quotations that covered it. It did not take very long after that:

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   Csethiro looked from her sketches to his notes, seeing -- for how could she not -- the same sentiment, the same affection boiled down and captured in paper, and Csevet could pick out the instant she _understood._ He felt cold; she was a fighter, almost more than scholar or courtier, she understood in her bones the instant aperture of opportunity, of opening weakness, and she had spied his in an heartbeat.

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    _It’s over, it’s done,_ he thought, _I am done._ But he could not bring himself to regret it. Not even in the awful instant when Csethiro turned at last to look at him.

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   “You are in love with Maia,” she said then, not angrily or with disgust, but with a speculative wonder, as if she had found the last piece of a mosaic and was holding it admiringly up to the light. She moved to brush the top sheet aside, then tilted her head to read the line revealed. 

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   Her lips moved silently, carefully, as if she were reading something precious, and Csevet dared to hope.

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   “You are in love with him also,” she repeated to herself.

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   They stood like that a long time, matched across painter and table and the entrails of Csevet’s confession. Dust rose in a column of sunlight, and the painterly smells of oil and paper seemed to deepen, thicken in preparation for... Then something about their positions tripped a familiar pattern in his mind, and after a moment he realized he and Csethiro each barred a door. If Maia were there, they would be guarding him, together.

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   And then the next realization, so fast it made him dizzy: In their matched skills and identical errand, he thought, they could almost be another norhecherei pair: tacit, unacknowledged, yes, but devoted and -- he thought it almost like a prayer -- beloved.

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__If he could never have anything else, at least he had that._ _

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   “Please do not offer to resign,” she said finally, “You have been known to do that, and we -- plural not formal, she was including _Maia_ \-- rely on you more than you, than any of us know.” Her eyes were very bright and looked directly at him, and her tone beginning to turn in that way he knew so well, the dip into the humor that would pluck Maia out of his worries, only Maia was not there and the reassurance was meant _for him_. “In truth, the paperwork alone would kill us.”

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   For once, Csevet, born courtier, did not know what to say.

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   Then, after a false start, she continued, suddenly younger, and seeming at least as embarrassed as he was, “The bed is rather cold in winter. Maia says nothing of course, but I feel him shivering. I believe this -- thou -- may offer a solution.”

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   Csevet’s only comfort, as he blushed to the tips of his ears, was that, across the room, Csethiro’s face matched her garnet earrings.

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   “You would...sanction such an arrangement?” It was all he could do to stop himself stuttering; the image his mind produced, of Csethiro on one silk end of the imperial bed and him on the other, Maia pressed between them as he had ached to do for a long, long time was profoundly distracting. Or perhaps he would lie in the middle, and...

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   “Tradition sanctions it.” Whether she was serious or not he could not tell, but she was smiling broadly now. “For if guarding the emperor is a task given two individuals, I cannot see how _loving_ him can be any different.”

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   “A creative interpretation, to be sure, but not one we am inclined to disagree with.”

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   They smiled at each other, one moment of perfect, affectionate understanding, then turned back to Etha. The exchange, satisfying as it had been, was probably best confined to its present audience.

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   True to his reputation, he hastened to preempt their concerns, 

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   “My daughter, Zhasanai and Mer,” he said quickly, “is an apprentice to the Clocksmith’s guild.” Their mutual incomprehension did little to stymie him as he rambled desperately on, “Apprenticed to a boiler-maker -- she is a good girl, and clever -- and she brings her projects home with her when she does visit, you understand.”

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   “We are pleased by your daughter’s good fortune,” Csevet said carefully, “but what does--”

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   “They blow up!” Etha seemed on the verge of combustion himself, so forceful was this declaration, “Cstheio Caireiszhasan, how they blow up!” Seeing Csevet’s real alarm, he calmed himself, and then faced both visitors with a small, conspiratorial grin,“We are generally supposed to be quite deaf.” It took a few seconds but,

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   “And this rumor will be sufficient to discourage...?”

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   “Perfectly.”

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   Ah. Well that was a certainly a solution. Csevet bowed, and permitted himself to relax.

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   “We offer our utmost sympathies, Mer Etha,” added Csethiro, deadpan.

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   “And we are honored by your regard.” Etha beamed, and it confirmed Csevet’s opinion that he was the right man; for if he could be trusted with their secret, he could be trusted with Maia. A brief glance at Csethiro -- when had they become so good at reading one another? -- took in her agreement also. Mentally reshuffling a dinner and a court appearance, Csevet named a time for a preliminary sitting. 

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   Then, matched pace for pace, they turned to go back to the Alcethmeret.

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End file.
